Waiting In the Wings
by The Jolly Hat
Summary: She was always there to lend a helping hand never taking center stage, forever in the background, but always present. This is her story Antoinette Giry. Moviebased, with a dash of Leroux mixed in. Possible later pairing: Erik Giry


_A/N: I just want to give a huge thank you hug and squee to my magnificent Beta and Saint- Polly Moopers! I "heart" her leik WOAH. Because most people don't "write in agony." _

Chapter 1- Devil's Child

"Antoinette!"

An insistent cry violently jerked me from my silent reverie. Reluctantly I cast my gaze upward, toward the voice. I was greeted by the sight of a gangly brunette balanced precariously on the unpolished wood of the stair banister, glaring down at me impatiently. Elise. One of my fellow 'ballet rats,' as our managers fondly referred to us. Seeing that she finally had my undivided attention, Elise unceremoniously heaved herself from her perch and alighted next to me. Her expression brightened a bit.

"Honestly Ann! I've been looking all over for you- I was afraid you'd miss the carnival! Madame Richarde has been looking for you to. You know how she hates losing track of her rats," she gently chided, ending with a grin. "What on Earth were you so lost in thought about?"

I briefly considered telling her- telling her that I was thinking about what had gone wrong in rehearsals today, and was pondering how to fix the mistakes, and about how every misstep that someone in the corps had taken chipped away at my patience. But I quickly banished the notion. As a young ballet rat of fifteen, I was supposed to be annoyed at Madame Richarde's insistence on perfection, not silently in agreement with her. Besides, my friends were easily bored by such talk.

"Never mind that," I evaded, "we had best get back to the group. We wouldn't want them to leave without us!" I gave Elise a nudge in the direction of the dormitories, where all ballet rat gatherings were generally held. She gave me a withering look, and I could tell she was not satisfied with my answer. But she let it pass, and took off with me through the crowded halls.

In truth, I could hardly have cared less about the bloody carnival. It was the same thing annually. Every year a bunch of strange people rolled into town in rickety wagons and demanded money for vaguely impressive feats of illusion. Every year the girls would beg to go. And every year Madame would trundle us out to see them. She thought we needed more stimulation, but the crowded confines of the opera were all the 'stimulation' I wanted or needed. Who needed to go see a bearded lady when the sordid and enthralling affairs of the cast and crew of the theater were so readily accessible? Skirting around an inconveniently placed set piece, Elise and I nearly barreled into the neatly arranged crowd of our fellow performers. A dozen pairs of eyes looked up in shock, and then trained themselves upon Madame Richarde apprehensively.

The wife of the Opera Populaire's lead tenor, Madame Richarde was a severe woman, and was accordingly dressed in dark tones. Her dress was less formal and restrictive than was normally considered acceptable in society- its loose cloth allowed her to demonstrate dance positions and blocking with relative ease. The cane she used to beat out steady rhythms for the ballet rats to dance to was now drumming an impatiently erratic tattoo against the floor. Irritation was evident in her rigid posture, and her icy gaze pinned me where I stood. Was I so very late?

"How very kind of you to join us, Mademoiselle Giry." Madame Richarde's voice was laced with acid, and she spat the words as though they had left a bad taste in her mouth. Yes, I was indeed very late. And Madame was not known for her tolerance in such situations. "I will deal with you later," she almost hissed. I resisted the urge to turn tail and head for the hills. "Mademoiselle Lambert-" here Elise froze in dread beside me- "I thank you for your promptness in finding Mademoiselle Giry." The tension melted from Elise's form in surprise and relief. "We must be going if we wish to get to the carnival before it closes. Come along, children." With that, Madame turned elegantly on her heel. A dozen murmurs of assent rose into the air, and as one we followed her into the teeming alleyways of the city.

As always, the carnival was being held in a perpetually vacant lot a few streets from the opera house. And, as, always, it seemed as though the entire city had turned out to gawk at the oddities presented. As our little group made its way through the congested streets of Paris, I perused the faces of my peers. The expressions ranged from sheer excitement to my own weary boredom- it was mostly the younger rats who were excited, as it was most likely their first time. Elise, however, had been there just as many times as I had and was still enthralled at the prospect of seeing it again. I smirked. At least one of us would enjoy the carnival then, I mused, just as an elbow collided with my ribcage.

I glared daggers at Elise, my apparent aggressor. She simply rolled her eyes and gestured mutely at our peers, who had stopped moving. I had neglected this fact, and ran smack into her wayward elbow. Still sore, I huffed and turned away to take stock of my surroundings. Just as I had remembered. Hay was strewn upon the ground between the grungy tents in a half-hearted attempt to cover the animal waste that littered the fairgrounds. All around, horses and donkeys were tied to trees or posts. Most had bald patches with obvious whip scars and saddle sores, and all were emaciated. The stench was intolerable- nothing like the mellow hay smell of the opera stables, where the animals were groomed daily, fed with fine oats and hay, and generally treated as well or better than a horse could ever hope for. I shuddered in revulsion, and inched closer to my group. It wouldn't do to get lost in that filth. Madame Richarde led us through the usual attractions- bearded lady, fortune teller, sword swallower, fire breather- until our little party stumbled across a cage. We had not seen any exotic animals at the carnival before. Intrigued, we moved in closer. I ended up at the very front, face pressed against the bars. I squinted into the gloom of the cage. A crowd had gathered behind me, and was likely quite cross that I had taken such a prime viewing position, but I paid it no mind- I wanted to see what was in this mysterious prison. A grating voice to my left caused me to turn from my inspection.

"Come see the Devil's Child! Horror of horrors! We've captured this beast and caged him, for surely if set loose he would wreak havoc upon all that is good and holy- step right up!" it shouted. I rolled my eyes. This 'attraction' was likely just some boy dressed up in a demon's mask, hired for a few francs to scare the tourists. The voice came from a tubby, unkempt man who appeared to be leading an even larger crowd back to the cage. Shoving people out of the way, the man lit several torches around the area, finally casting the cage's occupant into view.

A fairly unremarkable boy clutching a monkey doll huddled dejectedly in the center of the enclosure. At the addition of the torches, he jerked his head up to face the crowd. He was naked from the waist up, save for a crudely fashioned mask. It appeared to have been made from an old flour sack. A piece of twine was tied on each upper corner of the sack, giving the vague impression of ears or horns. Judging from the title of the "display," I guessed the latter. From the two ragged eye-slits of the mask, light eyes apathetically regarded the gathering, and then turned once again to the monkey toy. With a wave of disgust I noted that the cage was also littered with straw and excrement, and the scrawny boy bore shining scars where he had been whipped. This child most certainly was not being paid for his participation in this display. These people obviously treated their human prisoners no better than their animal ones. What on Earth was happening? Why was this boy in a cage?

As soon as the questions crossed my mind, the boy's "keeper" eased into the cage to answer them. Egged on by the cheering throng, the man wrenched the toy from the child's hands, and ripped off the mask. I felt myself gasp along with the rest of the crowd. His face! I had not expected anything like it. In places it was red and angry looking as though the skin had been burned, with veins searing blue rivers across his visage. In others the skin was gone entirely, offering the paying customers a glimpse at the white bone of the boy's skull. Lumps were strewn haphazardly about the gruesome sight. But most startling of all was the contrast of the left half of his face to the right. As horrific as the right half was, the left was beautiful. Years of deeply ingrained superstition informed me that such a contrast had to have been a message from either the Lord or the Devil himself. Surely this creature before me was inherently evil, or had committed some unforgivable sin to be so afflicted! The wind changed, causing the torch flames to cast part of his face into shadow, so that only the grotesque right half was visible. The man clawed at the creature's hair, yanking the face into full view of the crowd, even as the creature pawed about for the mask. His whip lashed out, leaving angry welts against the creature's-

But no. No, not a creature- a boy. I was suddenly disgusted with myself. The superstitions of the past were bollocks, I knew as much. I no longer threw salt over my shoulder to catch the devil in the eye, so why should I believe that this boy's face was a reflection of his soul? As the lashes fell, the boy's eyes welled with tears he refused to let fall. His gaze held no pleading- he was beyond any hope of aid, and knew that none would save him. In that moment I wanted to help him more than I had ever wanted anything before. The deformity was frightening, to be certain. But nothing could warrant that kind of cruelty. Despite my resolution, however, I still flinched at the sight of that horrible face.

That hideous man finally released the boy, who immediately pulled on his mask, as though it would make that nightmare prison fade away. The appreciative throng threw francs into the enclosure, and slowly began to wander off, each talking of the horror of the Devil's Child, or distracted by some other oddity. The ballet rats strayed as well, until I was the last left. The man was gloating over his profits and the boy was fiddling with something on one of the bars near the ground. How could I help? I mulled the question over, turning it about desperately in my mind. There had to be something-

My thoughts shattered as a rope flew over the man's chubby neck. Mon Dieu! The boy pulled it taut, stormy eyes flashing with malice as he slowly chocked the life from his captor. My voice caught in my throat, and all I could do was watch as the man fell to his knees, writhing in fear and agony before finally slumping to the ground. He did not stir.

My mind was completely numb with shock as I watched the child stoop to pick up his toy. My heart froze mid-beat as he looked to me, eyes chillingly detached. Mon Dieu! This boy was a murderer! Mon Dieu! I bit back a scream and the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. What was I to do? The boy had killed! But… surely this was justified? How long had he been kept in that cage, taunted and tortured? What did that justify? This? I shook my head in disbelief. In the recesses of my muddled brain, I registered distant footsteps. People were coming! So little time. I made a split-second decision, and hoped to the heavens that I would not regret it later.

"Boy! His keys! Find his keys!" I hissed desperately. The boy just stared mutely at me. "What, are you a half-wit? Find his keys; we must get you out of here before someone finds out what has happened! Fool, do you want to be killed, or worse?"

The insult upon his intelligence seemed to snap him out of his stupor, and he bent to the prone figure of his former captor. Within seconds he had found a lone key with his nimble fingers, and passed it to me wordlessly. Without hesitating I jammed it into the lock and turned- a satisfying _click_ resounded through the night air, and I wrenched open the door, seizing the boy's wrist.

The sounds of people were much too close for comfort now. I did not stop to consult the boy, just bolted into the darkness, away from that hell, away from the corpse, away from everything. He followed without question, mutely obeying the rough instructions of my insistent grasp. Behind us, the night erupted in a cacophony of sound- shouting, screaming, yelling. So, the body had been discovered. They were close, so close! I had to hide the boy. My mind immediately sprang to the only place I knew, the only place I had ever known: The Opera Populaire.

With the angry shouts hot on our heels, we fled into the now-deserted streets of Paris, blindly fleeing to my home. I fought desperately against my rising panic as the grand doors of the opera came into view. But I couldn't very well take him through the front doors! I clawed at my head in terror and despair with my free hand. My breath came in shallow gasps- I could not for the life of me think straight! And the shouts… the shouts were gaining on us. What to do? In an instant my roving eye was greeted with the sight of a gate. Perfect! I hauled my companion to it, and yanked the metal from its hole with a strength I did not know I possessed. I peered in. Ah! It was the storm drain that ran along the outline of the opera. Elise and I had found many entrances into this particular feature of the place, and explored it often. I happened to know that it led straight to the small chapel of the opera. The drain was dry now- Paris had not seen rain for quite some time.

"Get in- hurry!" I hissed, pushing him more cruelly than I had meant to in my panic. Follow it to the right until you reach a chapel. I will make sure there is nobody about, and meet you there. Stay quiet! They mustn't find you," I whispered fearfully. The boy only nodded solemnly, and took off to the right.

I heaved the grate back into position and collapsed against it, biting back panicked tears. What had I done? A murderer was now jogging in the direction of the opera _chapel_, of all places, under my instructions. A murderer he was, but I had offered him shelter. Was I in the wrong? Should I have let him be captured? He had been so mistreated… it was all so confusing! I was exhausted both physically and mentally, and wanted nothing more than to stay and rest… the shouts were closer. I bolted upright. I could not rest now. I sprinted to the opera's front, ahead of the mob. I had made my choice to help, there was not turning back. The boy needed me now, and I would not fail him.


End file.
